H. P. Lovecraft

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 25. Chapters: Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraftian horror, R. H. Barlow, Cosmicism, Lovecraft Remembered, Sonia Greene, Dream Cycle, Peter Cannon, Farnsworth Wright, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Lovecraft: a Biography, Rhode Island on Lovecraft, Edwin Baird, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, Lovecraft's Providence and Adjacent Parts, Blond Barbarians and Noble Savages, Hippocampus Press, Andrew Migliore, Hans Rodionoff, Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, Tryout, H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, Rainfall Books, Midnight Shambler. Excerpt: Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 ¿ March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally inimical to the interests of humankind. Lovecraft is best known for his Cthulhu Mythos, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works often challenged the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Humanism and Christianity. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. According to Joyce Carol Oates, Lovecraft ¿ as with Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century ¿ has exerted "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction". Stephen King called Lovecraft "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." King has even made it clear in his semi-autobiographical non-fiction book Danse Macabre that Lovecraft was responsible for his own fascination with horror and the macabre, and was the single largest figure to influence his fiction writing. Lovecraft's themes and ideas have had a profound effect on culture and literature in general. Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890, at 9:00 a.m. in his family home at 194 (later 454) Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island. (The house was torn down in 1961.) He was the only child of Winfield Scott Lovecraft, a traveling salesman of jewelry and precious metals, and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft, who could trace her ancestry in America back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. His parents married, the first marriage for both, when they were in their thirties, unusually late in life given the time period. In 1893, when Love